Half of Australia’s online retail spend heads overseas

43%.
That is how much of Australian ecommerce is spent overseas according to a research paper released by APCA (Online Payments, What’s Next?, 2009).

The report states that ’in 2005, Australian online shoppers reported making 86% of their total spend in Australia, but by December 2008 this had dropped to 57%’ (p.9).

$9.9 billion. Which 43% is in dollars.

It’s a bit of a worry for Australian retailers and if it isn’t it should be. Sure, some of that money is spent on travel and only a fraction (apparently less than 10% is the real amount that is spent on goods), but times are changing. Time to move where the cheese is. .

If you haven’t read it yet…

Do read the Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson. If you want to find out more before you do, read this. 
.

MOVE launched in Australia

MOVE, the Measurement of Outdoor Visibility and Exposure was launched today in Sydney. This is the first industry wide measurement for outdoor media in Australia. 
.

She's beautiful even when she's a bit angry

Bondi beach today. 
.

Google is turning up the heat on display

The title of the World’s Largest Internet Search company is possibly about to change as Google is no longer satisfied with the navigational power of ranked textlinks, but keen to include display, video and mobile in their product offering. With the DoubleClick Ad Exchange system up and running (background on Google’s road to display), they say they are able to match advertisers to audiences through real-time bidding.

What is an Ad Exchange?
’There may be as many as eight or more “exchanges” operating today in online display advertising. That compares with almost 400 “ad networks” of one sort or another. The promise of an exchange is greater efficiency, greater transparency, broader reach for advertisers and better yields for publishers.’ (by Greg Sterling)

Where do online portals / publishers fit into the picture? ’07-’08 saw a real surge in building new technologies for established portals and the rolling out of performance networks in Australia and overseas. By now all online media companies have their own performance product offering (MSDR, Microsoft Direct Response for the MSN sites) or have signed up to an ad network (e.g. Adconion).

Thoughts
While Google claims that this system will help publishers get the most value out of their online content, there is one sticking point. Buying performance media directly from a publisher is usually called a ‘blind buy’ as marketers are given limited (or no) visibility over ad placements in return of a rack rate. Increasing that visibility could pose dangers to CPM rates on premium sites or categories. However, Google ‘only’ being the lead generator, the link in between, they will need publishers to sign up to their Ad Exchange. So there is a glimmer of hope that this will have to work for publishers to really take off.

.